“Make no mistake about it, Miss Corey, this would be a date.”

“We seem to have moved away from just dinner and conversation.”

“We move nowhere you don’t want to go, Miss Corey. But keep in mind my advanced age.”

She did feel it wouldn’t be a good idea to give in easily. Her mother had long ago told her it was better to be gold than silver. Also, she didn’t like the idea of Selig simply calling her on what might have been a whim. This was probably a multimillionaire, and certainly a wily negotiator, so it wasn’t a good idea to give in and agree to anything easily. Nell didn’t like being maneuvered and wanted to preserve her self respect.

“How about tomorrow night?” she said.

“Wonderful!”

There. She’d forced a compromise.

“Pick you up sevenish?”

Sevenish!

“That would be fine.”

After hanging up, Nell wondered if she’d lost her mind. On the other hand, what the hell? Dinner and talk. She had to have a life outside the NYPD. Beam would understand. If she told him.

She thought about how she felt actually dating a man in his sixties who called her “Miss.”

Pretty good, she decided.

Adelaide had dinner with three other dancers near the studio in the Village where they all trained. All through the meal and over coffee or additional wine, everyone sympathized with her for the way her good luck had suddenly turned bad, but all agreed it was part and parcel of the business they were in and that they all loved.

Everyone, including Adelaide, left the restaurant somewhat tipsy from too much wine.

By the end of the short subway ride to the stop near her apartment, she felt slightly better about losing the Peel the Onion role. Adelaide had found the company misery so loves, and it had elevated her mood. But now, as she made her way up the concrete steps to the surface world, she was sober and hungry again.

When she turned a corner, the dimly lighted sidewalk ahead was empty. She was vaguely aware of someone rounding the corner behind her. So quiet was this dark street that she could hear faint footfalls, but she didn’t turn around.

The tip of her tongue worked on a morsel trapped between two of her molars, and her thoughts returned to the restaurant. She hadn’t eaten much of the angel hair pasta she’d ordered, concentrating instead on conversation and her wine glass. As she walked the shadowed pavement, she wondered about her earlier lack of appetite. Definitely, worry had caused it. But what had she been attempting to put out of her mind, losing the Off-Broadway part, or gaining a jury summons?

Adelaide had served on a jury about six years ago, and she recalled that receiving the summons had been, more than anything, irritating. But after an initial attempt to get out of doing her civic duty, she resigned herself to serving and it hadn’t been such an ordeal. It had been a two day trial about a stolen car, ending in the conviction of the thief. Much of the time had been taken by the prosecutor explaining how to hot wire a car and jump the ignition. She’d found it interesting, but not so much that she wanted to repeat the experience, and not at all useful. Adelaide didn’t think she’d ever have to steal a car.

The sound of leather soles on concrete behind her was getting closer, but she didn’t give it much thought. As she strode along the sidewalk with a dancer’s elegance, she squeezed her purse, feeling the jury summons still inside it. She was annoyed now by the summons, and moving beyond sobriety toward a headache and the queasy feeling she always got after she drank too much.

Someone had told her that once the courts got you in their computer they never forgot you. That might be why so many people avoided jury duty—that the system kept drawing on lots of the same people over and over. Adelaide didn’t want to be one of those people, but she was afraid that in the eyes of the court she had become one.

Afraid.

She hesitated before regaining her stride. Yes, she wasn’t only irritated this time; she was afraid. The newspapers were full of stories about people doing bizarre things to get out of jury duty. They were afraid to serve, and why shouldn’t they be, with a maniac waiting to kill them if they arrived at the wrong verdict? Adelaide was sure she wouldn’t have been summoned at all if so many other prospective jurors hadn’t shirked their duty. Most of the people she knew said they’d never served on a jury. Supposedly the city was programmed to call on you every ten years or so, not six.

Six years. Wasn’t it also about six years ago when the Justice Killer’s last victim, Tina something, had also been on a jury? She hadn’t been a foreperson or anything, either, just a common juror—like they wanted Adelaide to be—and now she was dead. Adelaide shivered. Tina something hadn’t exactly died a pleasant kind of death.

A turning car’s headlights momentarily played down the block and the lengthened shadow of whoever was behind Adelaide almost reached the point where she might have glimpsed it in the corner of her vision. Then the street was dark again.

Damn it! If she’d landed the part in Onion she surely could have gotten out of jury duty, or at least had it postponed. She would have had to rehearse—the court would have understood that the play depended on her. That would have been enough to be excused from sitting in a stifling courtroom, listening to something that was bound to be unpleasant; enough to be excused from being afraid until Mr. Justice Killer was killed or captured.

One thing the experts seemed to agree on: the killer had widened his pool of potential victims. Adelaide knew she might be right at the edge of that pool, and she didn’t want to so much as dip a cute and dainty toe in it.

The slight scuffing sound of footsteps behind her drew closer, and she sensed a presence very near. Not breaking stride, she saw a moving shadow merge with her own, almost completely devouring it.

“You shouldn’t be out walking alone at night in this neighborhood, sweetheart. You want some company?”

Adelaide stopped and stood still, then turned and faced a large, bearded man wearing a dark turtleneck sweater and jeans. His beard was jet black and trimmed so it came to a point. He was carrying a white plastic bag by its loops, and the way the plastic was stretched indicated there was something heavy inside.

When he saw her face, his eyes changed in the way she expected. He gave her a smile surely meant to be disarming. “You are every kind of cute. I said—”

“Back off, asshole!” Adelaide told him.

He backed away a step, the smile freeze-framed in his beard, then spun on his heel and jogged across the street.

“You don’t know what you’re missing!” he yelled from the opposite sidewalk.

Adelaide didn’t bother to answer. More important matters occupied her mind. She wasn’t going to serve a single day of jury duty. First thing tomorrow she’d phone Barry. First thing!

She dug a pen out of her purse and wrote a little reminder on her left palm, as she often did: Call Barry.

Adelaide had an idea.

29

St. Louis, 1989

“I’m exhausted,” April said, in the middle of putting away the groceries.

Justice wasn’t surprised. April spent her days exhausted. Part of the reason was the depression, and part of it was the prescription medicine she was shoveling down. It seemed the proper cocktail of medications couldn’t be found to bring her relief. She’d tried doctor after doctor. She was seeing a psychologist regularly now for analysis, and a psychiatrist who prescribed medicines. The one thing the medicines seemed to have in common was that they sapped her of energy. April slept around most of the clock, and seldom left the house. She’d accompanied him to the supermarket this time only so she could choose some of what she wanted to eat, in an effort to improve her appetite.